This concert has regrettably been cancelled due to a strike by Carnegie Hall’s stagehands, represented by IATSE / Local One (International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees).

Carnegie Hall has been engaged in talks with its stagehands for some time, working toward a new contract. Our disagreement has been centered on future operations of our new Education Wing and issues related to union jurisdiction within these facilities, created within the building’s upper floors to house Carnegie Hall’s expanding music education and community programs.

Patrons who purchased tickets for this performance with a credit card will receive automatic refunds. Those who purchased tickets with cash should call CarnegieCharge at 212-247-7800.

The scheduled Opening Night Gala dinner, benefiting Carnegie Hall’s artistic and educational programs, will still take place for gala patrons at The Waldorf Astoria’s Grand Ballroom, beginning at 6 PM.

Please note that all future performances currently remain on Carnegie Hall’s schedule, pending resolution of this work stoppage.

Performers

The Philadelphia OrchestraYannick Nézet-Séguin, Music Director and Conductor

Event Duration

The printed program will last approximately one and one-half hours with no intermission.

Bios

The Philadelphia Orchestra

The Philadelphia Orchestra is one of the preeminent orchestras in the world, renowned for
its distinctive sound, desired for its keen ability to capture the hearts and imaginations
of audiences, and admired for a legacy of innovation in music making. The orchestra is
inspiring the future and transforming its rich tradition of achievement, sustaining the
highest level of artistic quality, but also challenging-and exceeding-that level by
creating powerful musical experiences for audiences at home and around the world.

Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin triumphantly opened his inaugural season as the eighth
artistic leader of the orchestra in fall 2012, and has been embraced by the musicians of
the orchestra, audiences, and the community itself. Yannick's concerts of diverse
repertoire attract sold-out houses, and he has established a regular forum for connecting
with concertgoers through Post-Concert Conversations. Under Yannick's leadership, the
orchestra returns to recording with a newly released CD on the Deutsche Grammophon label of
Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring and Leopold Stokowski transcriptions. In
Yannick's inaugural season, the orchestra has also returned to the radio airwaves, with
weekly Sunday afternoon broadcasts on WRTI-FM.

Philadelphia is home, and the orchestra nurtures an important relationship not only with
patrons who support the main season at the Kimmel Center, but also those who enjoy the
orchestra's other area performances at the Mann Center, Penn's Landing, and other venues.
The orchestra is also a global ambassador for Philadelphia and for the US. Having been the
first American orchestra to perform in China in 1973 at the request of President Nixon,
today The Philadelphia Orchestra boasts a new partnership with the National Centre for the
Performing Arts in Beijing. The orchestra annually performs at Carnegie Hall, while also
enjoying annual residencies in Saratoga Springs, New York, and at the Bravo! Vail
festival.

Musician-led initiatives, including highly successful Cello and Violin Play-Ins, shine a
spotlight on the orchestra's musicians as they spread out from the stage into the
community. The orchestra's commitment to its education and community partnership
initiatives manifests itself in numerous other ways, including concerts for families and
students, and eZseatU, a program that allows full-time college students to attend an
unlimited number of orchestra concerts for a $25 annual membership fee. Visit philorch.org
for more information.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin

Yannick Nézet-Séguin triumphantly opened his inaugural season as the eighth music director
of The Philadelphia Orchestra in the fall of 2012. His highly collaborative style, deeply
rooted musical curiosity, and boundless enthusiasm, paired with a fresh approach to
orchestral programming, have been heralded by critics and audiences alike. In his first
season, he took the orchestra to new musical heights. His second builds on that momentum
with highlights that include a Philadelphia Commissions Micro-Festival, for which three
leading composers have been commissioned to write solo works for three of the orchestra's
principal players; the next installment in his multi-season focus on requiems with Fauré's
Requiem; and a unique, theatrically staged presentation of Strauss's revolutionary opera
Salome, a first-ever co-production with Opera Philadelphia.

Yannick has established himself as a musical leader of the highest caliber and one of the
most exciting talents of his generation. Since 2008, he has been music director of the
Rotterdam Philharmonic and principal guest conductor of the London Philharmonic, and since
2000 artistic director and principal conductor of Montreal's Orchestre Métropolitain. He
becomes the first-ever mentor conductor of the Curtis Institute of Music's conducting
fellows program in fall 2013. He has made wildly successful appearances with the world's
most revered ensembles, and has conducted critically acclaimed performances at many of the
leading opera houses.

Yannick and Deutsche Grammophon (DG) enjoy a long-term collaboration. Under his
leadership, The Philadelphia Orchestra returns to recording with a newly released CD on
that label of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and Leopold Stokowski transcriptions.
Yannick continues a fruitful recording relationship with the Rotterdam Philharmonic for DG,
BIS, and EMI/Virgin; the London Philharmonic for the LPO label; and the Orchestre
Métropolitain for ATMA Classique.

A native of Montreal, Yannick studied at that city's Conservatory of Music and continued
lessons with renowned conductor Carlo Maria Giulini and with Joseph Flummerfelt at
Westminster Choir College. Among Yannick's honors are an appointment as Companion of the
Order of Canada, a Royal Philharmonic Society Award, Canada's National Arts Centre Award,
the Prix Denise-Pelletier, and an honorary doctorate by the University of Quebec in
Montreal. Visit philorch.org/conductor to read Yannick's full bio.

Joshua Bell

Often referred to as the "poet of the violin," Joshua Bell is one of the world's most
celebrated violinists. An Avery Fisher Prize recipient and Musical America's 2010
Instrumentalist of the Year, he recently received the New York Recording Academy Honors. He
was also recently appointed music director of the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, the
first person to hold this title since Neville Marriner formed the orchestra in 1958. The
Academy's first CD under Mr. Bell's leadership-of Beethoven's Fourth and Seventh
symphonies-debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard classical chart. Bach's violin
concertos will be recorded next. In addition to tonight's performance, highlights of Mr.
Bell's 2013-2014 season include European and US tours with the Academy; performances with
the Houston, Dallas, and St. Louis symphonies; the Brahms Concerto with Paavo Järvi and the
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra; Sibelius's Concerto with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles
Philharmonic; a Kennedy Center performance; and a US recital tour.

Mr. Bell has recorded more than 40 CDs and is a multiple Grammy Award winner. His most
recent release on Sony, Musical Gifts, features collaborations with Chris Botti,
Kristin Chenoweth, Chick Corea, Gloria Estefan, Renée Fleming, and Alison Krauss. Other
recent releases include French Impressions with pianist Jeremy Denk and
Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto with the Berliner Philharmoniker. His discography encompasses
the major violin repertoire in addition to John Corigliano's Oscar-winning soundtrack for
The Red Violin. In 2007, Mr. Bell made headlines when he performed, incognito, in
a Washington, DC, subway station for a Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post
story that examined art and context; that conversation continues with the new Annick
Press-illustrated children's book The Man with the Violin.

Born in Bloomington, Indiana, Mr. Bell received his first violin at age four. At age
12, he began studying with renowned violinist Josef Gingold at Indiana University, and two
years later made his debut with The Philadelphia Orchestra and Riccardo Muti. Mr. Bell's
Carnegie Hall debut soon followed. His career has now spanned more than 30 years as a
soloist, chamber musician, recording artist, and conductor. Mr. Bell performs on the 1713
Huberman Stradivarius.

Esperanza Spalding

From her early years to her current success as a creative musician, Esperanza Spalding has
charted her own course. The young bassist-vocalist-composer was one of the biggest breakout
stars of 2011, garnering Best New Artist at the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards. This is
unprecedented by a jazz musician, and Ms. Spalding continues to make the unprecedented her
norm.

Ms. Spalding's journey as a solo artist began with the 2006 release of Junjo, featuring
pianist Aruán Ortiz and drummer Francisco Mela. She presented the various sides of her
writing on Esperanza, her 2008 international debut recording, quickly topping Billboard's
Contemporary Jazz Chart and becoming that year's best-selling jazz album worldwide.
Numerous awards and appearances followed, including an invitation by President Barack Obama
to appear at both the White House and the Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony, performing at the
84th Annual Academy Awards, and an appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman that
found Letterman and bandleader Paul Shaffer proclaiming the young musician as the "coolest"
guest in the program's three-decade history.

Her experimental sketches continued with Chamber Music Society in 2010, joined by
keyboardist Leo Genovese, drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, percussionist Quintino Cinalli,
vocalists including the legendary Milton Nascimento, and a string trio arranged by Gil
Goldstein and Ms. Spalding. The album was another instant chart-topper and gained multiple
awards, earning her a Grammy for Best New Artist in 2011. Maintaining her lifelong passion
for new sounds and uncharted territory, the versatile Ms. Spalding has collaborated with
musicians and artists from different styles and genres, including Wayne Shorter, Prince,
Herbie Hancock, Corinne Bailey Mae, Bruno Mars, and Janelle Monáe.

Ms. Spalding's latest recording, Radio Music Society, includes a mosaic array of
musicians: Joe Lovano, Jack DeJohnette, Billy Hart, Q-Tip, Algebra Blessett, Lalah
Hathaway, Gretchen Parlato, Lionel Loueke, Janice Scroggins, and Thara Memory, as well as
the horn section of Memory's American Music Program ensemble. Ms. Spalding hopes this album
can serve as a window for the musicians whom she loves and admires to reach the mainstream
audience, as what they manifest "bring good into the lives of the people who hear
them."

Radio Music Society is another unprecedented chapter in the Esperanza Spalding story, as
she continues on her journey of new musical horizons.

Audio

At a Glance

Tonight’s concert opens with Tchaikovsky’s Slavonic March, Op. 31—or Serbian-Russian March on National Slavonic Themes, as it was initially called—a brilliantly orchestrated march that incorporates Serbian folk songs as well as the Russian national anthem, “God Save the Tsar.” Composed in the 1860s for violinist Pablo de Sarasate, Saint-Saëns’s Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, Op 28, shows off the composer’s melodic and symphonic gift, as well as the dash and verve of his spirit. Ravel’s Tzigane, another virtuosic work for violin and orchestra, serves as a compendium of gypsy styles, featuring such techniques as harmonics, pizzicatos, double stops, and all manner of fireworks. The opera Samson et Dalila stands alone in Saint-Saëns’s dramatic oeuvre as a work of sustained inspiration that continues to hold audiences today with its gripping characterization, meltingly beautiful vocal lines, and brilliant ensembles and choruses. American bassist, cellist, and singer Esperanza Spalding draws upon many genres in her compositions; tonight, she joins the orchestra for three exciting new arrangements of songs from her album Chamber Music Society. Ravel’s Boléro, which closes the program, is one of the most subversive orchestral scores of the 20th century that consists, in the composer’s words, “wholly of orchestral effects without music—one long and very gradual crescendo.”

Schedule

Attended by more than 600 guests every year, Carnegie Hall's Opening Night Gala is a premier event in New York's cultural and social calendar.

Gala Benefit TicketsGala benefit tickets include prime concert seating and the option of attending either a pre-concert reception ($1,000 per person) or a post-concert, black-tie dinner at The Waldorf Astoria (starting at $1,500 per person).

Please reserve online or contact the Special Events office at 212-903-9679. Please note that exact seating assignments will not be determined until the month of the event.